Villain in the World

“Forgive me."

A fractured glimpse of a broken memory surged through his mind. It was sharp and haunting, but vanished into the void just like it was. A single teardrop fell on the back of his left hand. The teardrop was cool and heavy, but also silent to him. He turned his eyes to it, but surprisingly was numb to its touch.

Eren turned his gaze toward the only window of the room, beside his bed.

The outside world had already surrendered its brilliance. The sky was a bruised expanse of charcoal clouds, suffocating the morning sun.

It had carried a distinct promise of rain. There was a storm teasing the seen horizon for over months and months, but not daring to fall down.

"That dream again..."

The question was to his own, but just like always, his soul was given no answer at all, just silence, void. He shook the shadows from his thoughts; reminding himself of the weight of the days waiting ahead of himself—his first day in the Exorcist Society.

"Good morning, brother."

A melodic voice, still untouched by the gloom of the world, drifted around in the room. The voice was from Chihiro. The soft warmth of his younger sister's greeting, stood in a stark contrast to the coldness settling in Eren's chest.

"You are already up?"

Eren turned his head and vision, to his left side. A smile, practiced for years, masked the fractures in his heart. He looked at his younger sister, and hid every ounce of his words in the shadows of calmly masked face.

The year was 1793.

On the heart of the Forth land, there was standing the capital, District A, also known as Land of the Chosen Ones.

The world been divided into eleven regions, Forth Land was standing as a powerhouse in both influence and power. And the land size of Forth Land was something outshining others.

Two great rivers, the Sealis and the Aola, fractured the land into three distinct territorial lands. It carried the weight of secrets of the ancient times for times beyond written history.

And the world, was from the beginning, a silent, calm yet destructive warzone of three distant lives against each other: The Humans, the Spirits and the chaotic Engimas.

Even though the eleven legions were governed by its own laws, they had maintained peace between them for a long time, feeling the need of unity in order to survive against the spirits and engimas. They were all gathered together like some stones bound together by a blue string—the Exorcist Society.

Exorcist Society, operated through a single chain of command. It was always a sovereign power that almost never answered for its deeds. The single thread was unbreakable. Even Etopia, which shared a large land border with Forth Land, was bound to respect the power itself.

***

[8:37 PM, Previous day]

Eren was standing on the edge of Raygin, a city of the giants of concretes. Beside him, was his three years senior by age, Marco Nierman.

"Raygin used to be alive."

Marco pulled the bar fate of the broken city, gesturing his hand towards the vast open, but close hollow like skyscrapers.

"But the paranormal rot grew just too much first which was beyond control. And now this eastern part of the city has become like an ancient extincted civilized city."

"Can you please spare off the history?"

Eren interrupted with a visible sign of uninterest,

"What is that I have to do?"

"Let me remember..."

Marco muttered, while pulling out a cigarette and a lighter from the pocket of his coat. He lightened up the cigarette, and took a deep inhale of smoke, exhaled it. Since there was wind blowing to the west—from the back of them, the exhaled smoke also blew away without touching Marco's face.

"You can see that grey building, right?"

As the place was dark and dark, and sky was covered with clouds, the color of a building couldn't be seen by normal eyes. And Eren also didn't see it.

"I can't see."

Even though Eren was unable to see, Marco seemed to see the building's grey color clearly in that darkness.

"Oh! How could you see? But don't worry, there is only one building in front of you. That one."

"Yes."

"There are a lot of engimas roaming around in that building. You have to clear those up."

Marco threw a sword gently to Eren. Just after catching the sword in his right hand, Eren turned to his left. In the very next moment, Marco found Eren out of his sight. Eren already left for his given task. Marco looked at the place where the boy was and took another slow but deep drag of his cigarette. A thin smirk played on his lips.

It was not any illusion or misunderstanding of Marco, Eren did teleport three times, in a very short moment.

The building was of six floors. The first floor was totally empty, and there was awkward silence all around. It looked like the building was a kind of hotel, since the floor was vast open.

On the second floor, there was a swarm of low level engimas lunged at him from the shadows. Eren was still calm and cold, quite confident over himself. Eren was like of flickering behind each of them. He sliced them one by one, without making any rush. His sword was covered with the engimas' cutovers. Their forms and existence, both shattering in the very moments without even leaving the chance to feel the death.

But the rhythm was not supposed to last long, as the second floor was just a quite trial. The next ones were far from easy. With each passing second, the air was growing heavier. It was feeling toxic, hard to breathe. Eren was losing his calmness continuously for some reason.

He was no longer the same cold strategist; he was becoming a whirlwind of violent instinct.

As he was tearing through the third, fourth and fifth floor, the cost of his speed was gradually becoming to show. His body was breaking like from inside. His muscles were like to be teared up by his own movements. And his dress, a loose-fitting black top covering his elbows, became full of teared parts. The dress was quite filled with Eren's own blood.

He was also bleeding from his forehead. It was mixing with his sweat. His wounds were giving a better pain to him for this.

When Eren entered the sixth floor using the staircase, he felt something unusual, unknown to him. The air was so heavy that Eren couldn't even breath properly. He covered his mouth with the right hand, his suffering was clear.

"What is happening?"

He asked in his mind. But the air was already crushing his lungs. His consciousness was fading out. Eren then heard a voice from deep inside of his memories.

"Forgive me."

Those words were soft, filled with unknown kindness. But it felt like terrifying to Eren for an unknown reason.

Eren got snapped out of his dream. He was taking breath in a rushed way. As if he got to see a nightmare.

Getting out of the bed, he slowly made his steps to the washroom to wash his face.

Even when taking the water on his palms, they were shaking a bit. He looked at the mirror with a questioned face. There were a number of wound marks on his face, proving that his dream was more than that of what he thought.

"It was real."

He murmured, his voice was sounding like pulled out of deep darkness, a hollow.

"But if it was real, why can't remember the end?"

He stared at the mirror, searching for something at his own reflection. But he was left none of the killing instincts.

Eren looked totally like an innocent boy who had just lost his path. Who had forgot what he was actually supposed to do.

But deep down, he was feeling a little cold, an unknown feeling. He knew it wasn't his own coldness, but he also didn't understand it properly. His inner self was warning him, even though Eren wasn't getting that.

He looked innocent, but deep down, he was carrying something far more sinister, mad and beyond knowing self.

And he knew it, but was not able to understand it.